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Science 2 February 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5812, pp. 666 - 669
DOI: 10.1126/science.1135370
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Reports

Structural and Regulatory Genes Required to Make the Gas Dimethyl Sulfide in Bacteria

Jonathan D. Todd,1 Rachel Rogers,1 You Guo Li,1* Margaret Wexler,1 Philip L. Bond,1{dagger} Lei Sun,1 Andrew R. J. Curson,1 Gill Malin,2 Michael Steinke,2{ddagger} Andrew W. B. Johnston1§

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is a key compound in global sulfur and carbon cycles. DMS oxidation products cause cloud nucleation and may affect weather and climate. DMS is generated largely by bacterial catabolism of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a secondary metabolite made by marine algae. We demonstrate that the bacterial gene dddD is required for this process and that its transcription is induced by the DMSP substrate. Cloned dddD from the marine bacterium Marinomonas and from two bacterial strains that associate with higher plants, the N2-fixing symbiont Rhizobium NGR234 and the root-colonizing Burkholderia cepacia AMMD, conferred to Escherichia coli the ability to make DMS from DMSP. The inferred enzymatic mechanism for DMS liberation involves an initial step in which DMSP is modified by addition of acyl coenzyme A, rather than the immediate release of DMS by a DMSP lyase, the previously suggested mechanism.

1 School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
2 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.

* Present address: State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, College of Life Sciences and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070 Hubei, China.

{dagger} Present address: Advanced Wastewater Management Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.

{ddagger} Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.

§ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.johnston{at}uea.ac.uk

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